In seeking for the expression of yourself do not for one moment think it is necessary for you to think out something new, original, startling, or strange. That is not the idea at all. Your life may be _yours_--purely individualistic, and yet everything you do and say and think and feel be as old as the hills. The idea is this. No matter where you get the thoughts from that incite you to action, _make them your own_; _let them become a part of yourself_, then your life will be yours indeed; an expression of your own soul, and not that imitation of another that Emerson so truthfully says is suicide.
But in the radiating of my own individuality I must be so filled with the true spirit of individuality that I shall in no way interfere with that of others. Too often men and women in seeking to be "individual" have seriously trespassed upon the rights, the joys, the comforts of others. This is a fundamental error. The first law of individualism is this: "What I claim for myself I _thereby freely accord_ to all others." Note the word "thereby." In the very fact and act of claiming I _thereby_ freely recognize _to the utmost_ the right of every one else to claim the same right. There is no selfishness in individualism; there are no "special" privileges in its exercise. It is the habit of a few to believe that _they_ should have "special" privileges accorded them. True individualism recognizes no such special rights. In _taking_ we _give_. In claiming we avow the right of others to claim.
The trouble with mankind is that it has not learned that souls are individuals; that the diversities seen between plants, the differences that exist even between blades of grass, so that there are no two blades exactly alike, is but indicative of the individualism of the human soul. There is a family likeness, for we are all created in God's image, but God is so large, so great, so diverse, in Himself, that each soul is a different image. Hence each soul must be itself and not another. Each soul must develop in its own lines and not in those of others.
The great errors have come in when men have said: "I have found the way of life; it is the only way; all men, therefore, must walk herein." It is a very human error, yet error it certainly is. That Roman Catholicism is "the way" for many human souls no one can question, but that it is "the only way for all human souls" many millions have questioned and doubtless for ever will question. Every church, every creed, every philosophy has those for whom it is "the way," for the time being at least, and it is well that they walk therein. But in thought religion, as in everything else, progress is the law of life, not standing still. In religious thought, as in all life, let us say with our whole souls: